Vietnam Veterans Plaza will honor Jan C. Scruggs

Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Plaza to honor Jan Scruggs, Founder and President of VVMF, with Tenth Annual Phelps Award
NEW YORK and WASHINGTON
Oct. 6, 2014

PRNewswire-USNewswire

The Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Plaza will honor Jan C. Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF), as the tenth annual honoree of the Phelps Award. The Phelps Award recognizes outstanding individuals who have distinguished themselves by bringing exemplary honor and support to veterans, and especially Vietnam Veterans.

"It is with a great sense of admiration that the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Plaza board of directors names Jan Scruggs as the 2014 recipient of the Phelps Award which recognizes outstanding individuals who bring honor to our veterans in an exemplary way," said Harry Bridgwood, Chairman of the Friends of the Vietnam Veterans Plaza. "Jan is truly deserving of this award for his outstanding dedication to honoring Vietnam veterans, begun over three decades ago, and his unwavering and ongoing commitment to honor America's legacy of military service, our veterans and those who are serving today."

"It is quite an honor to be chosen for this award amongst such a distinguished group of previous award winners. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial welcomed home Vietnam veterans in 1982 and today my mission continues with the campaign to build the Education Center at The Wall. The Center will teach future generations about America's legacy of service and make sure that the faces and stories of our heroes are never forgotten. When the Center is built, Vietnam veterans will welcome home the veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, who will also be honored there," said Scruggs.

Scruggs was a wounded and decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, having served in the 199th Light Infantry Brigade of the U.S. Army. In 1979, he conceived the idea of building the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., as a tribute to all who served during one of the longest wars in American history. Today, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is among the most visited memorials in the nation's capital. Scruggs launched the effort with $2,800 of his own money and gradually gained the support of other Vietnam veterans in persuading Congress to provide a prominent location on federal government property somewhere in Washington, D.C. The site chosen was on the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial.

As president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, the nonprofit organization created to build and maintain the Memorial, Scruggs headed up the effort that raised $8.4 million and saw the Memorial completed in just two years. It was dedicated on November 13, 1982, during a week-long national salute to Vietnam veterans in the nation's capital. Scruggs continues to lead VVMF as it enters a new phase in its mission to remember those who sacrificed in Vietnam: building the Education Center at The Wall. The Education Center will show the photos and tell the stories of those who made the ultimate sacrifice during the Vietnam War, as well as celebrate the values embodied by American service members in all of our nation's wars.

The Phelps Award was designed by artist John Phelps, a Navy veteran who served during the Vietnam War. In 2003, John Phelps began working with the Friends of Vietnam Veterans Plaza on the award, resulting in the creation of a sculpted replica of a Vietnam era battle helmet. The battle helmet is mounted on a handcrafted green glass-block, inscribed with excerpts from the "letters home," also engraved on the New York City Vietnam Veterans Memorial located in the Plaza at 55 Water Street.

The Friends of Vietnam Veterans Plaza named their Honoree of the Year Award to recognize the service of John Phelps and his son, Marine Corps Lance Corporal Chance Russell Phelps. Chance was killed in action while conducting combat operations west of Baghdad on April 9th 2004. He was nineteen years old.
read more here

The Wall

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.

And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind."

Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978